Friends
David Sbarra and Mary Waldron are both clinical psychology
graduate students.

By Anne Bromley

Notions
of ideal love abound, from traditional fairy tales to modern films
and TV shows, as if the quest for the perfect partner could really
end in happily ever after.

Although
we might wish true love could be as sweet as Valentines
Day chocolate, even the most romantic relationship consists of
a mixture of flavors from day to day, a U.Va. doctoral student
is finding in his research.

David
Sbarra, who is in his sixth year in clinical psychology, began
two studies in the fall of 2000, one on dating and one on breaking
up. Hes looking at how exclusive relationships among undergraduates
progress over time and how individuals cope when things dont
work out.

Despite
all we know about how close love relationships develop, many important
and unanswered scientific questions remain, said Sbarra.

About
150 people are currently participating, but there have been as
many as 300 people in the two-year project, which ends in May.
After an initial interview, Sbarra and a team of undergraduate
research assistants follow the participants via weekly e-mails
that ask about the individuals happiness with the relationship
and how its going. Among the 10 descriptions respondents
can choose to characterize their feelings about the relationship
are: falling in love, being content but not in love, hitting a
plateau, wishing to be just friends, fighting a lot or wanting
to get out as soon as possible.

Students
report wide fluctuations in their week-to-week happiness and satisfaction
with their relationships, Sbarra said. These kinds
of ups and downs are par for the course in any relationship, and
they dont necessarily mean that the end is near. Most successful
couples negotiate major questions about their relationship before
settling into a more committed partnership.

In
the process of becoming attached, most college students think
about things like whether the person is right for
them, if the timings right, if they should take things more
slowly, or  if its a long-distance relationship 
whether its working out on those terms. Sbarra has found
from the breaking-up study that the length of the participants
relationships varies from five months to three years, with the
average being about 18 months.

Females
seem much more willing to talk about their relationships than
males, Sbarra said. In fact, its been hard to get any guys
to be part of the study. But thats data in and of itself,
even though it cant be analyzed, Sbarra told a Discovery
channel reporter last year on a segment covering this research.

So
when the chocolates all gone, how do people cope with a
break-up? What strategies work better or worse over time? Again,
men more often avoid displays of emotion, whereas women tend to
let their feelings out and try to work through them. Although
popular psychology literature invariably says the latter approach
is healthier, Sbarra said theres not much of a scientific
basis for that idea and its not necessarily the case. Some
people seem to do just fine without going through an emotional
upheaval. That doesnt mean theyre getting over the
relationship any faster, however.

He
also stressed that separating is much more of a process
than an event. Over the course of the weekly e-mails, his
team is finding that those who do break up usually think about
it for some time before actually doing so.

People
usually start wondering  this might not be what I
want; I think I want to see other people; this just isnt
the same anymore. Its not uncommon for people to take
a break, and our experiences suggest that this is one way
people start to uncouple. Taking a break is a comfortable and
good way to try out being apart, Sbarra said. Some get back
together; some stay apart.

If
they do go their separate ways, they may go into the other study,
which is actually Sbarras main topic for his dissertation:
how people cope with the dissolution of a serious relationship.
Ultimately, he would like to develop a method to understand how
adults grieve after their marriage ends. Hes been working
with psychology professor Robert Emery, director of the Center
for Children, Families and the Law, on a study looking at
long-term adjustment, especially where children are involved.

The
undergraduates who participate in the dissolution study go through
an interview and fill out questionnaires about how theyre
doing. Sbarra and his research team have participants (who dont
have to have been in the dating study) chart their moods and feelings
in a daily diary for a month. They also wear beepers, enabling
researchers to call and prompt them at random times every day
to record their state of mind in the diary  or degree of
heartache, as the case may be. Participants include both those
who were left and those who did the leaving, but not necessarily
both partners.

When
they are interviewed a second time at the end of the month, most
people have at least begun to adjust and get used to their new
status, Sbarra said. So for those pining over Valentines
Day, take heart  youre gonna be all right.
§ Undergraduates can participate in the study. See http://faculty.
virginia.edu/hoos-dating/